


Fire and water

by Quente



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Love, M/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 09:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quente/pseuds/Quente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a summer story about beaches and oceans and passion. </p><p>Liv is having a helluva time figuring out how to desire Viggo as much as she should. She seeks inspiration ... and finds it in Orlando. </p><p>(Written a long time ago!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire and water

"I think we need to do the whole scene in Elvish, actually." Viggo stared earnestly at Phillipa.  
Liv made an inarticulate noise, and Phillipa glanced at her with eyes full of commiseration. "Viggo," Phillipa said carefully, "The whole scene? How about just parts of it?"

"We can learn it. Elvish isn't as hard as Japanese." Viggo shrugged and sat back as though he'd made his point.

Liv felt a bit murderous. The accent was difficult even without the words in Sindarin or Quenya or whatever it was called, and since the scene was being shot the next day, Liv would have to cancel her evening plans entirely.

She looked sidelong at Viggo. Viggo had taken out his sword and was sharpening it with a small stone. Philippa appeared to be deeply amused.

"I'm sure it couldn't hurt to film the scene once in Elvish," Phillipa said finally, with a sigh. "I'll call the translators."

*

They stood on the bridge and leaned toward each other. Right before Viggo's lips touched hers, Liv's nose wrinkled.

"CUT!"

"Liv!" Peter's voice sounded admonishing.

Liv felt close to tears. Every time she leaned toward Viggo to kiss him, she smelled earth, sweat, metal, old cloth, grime...

"One more time, Peter." Liv sniffed back a tear. Viggo's face was blankly patient, but she could sense that he was thinking less and less of her acting ability.

"Perhaps we've worked enough for one day," Viggo's voice was quiet, but Peter stopped and listened to it.

"It is late, and it's been a long week." Peter admitted. "I could get some rewrites done tonight." He turned to the crew. "Okay. Pack up, people! Back here Monday."

Liv had the strangest sensation that the crew was peering at her, wondering what was wrong. Love scenes were the easiest to shoot, Liv had been over and over the mood that she was trying to convey. She slipped easily into the role of Arwen -- what was wrong?

Viggo stared at her for a moment, and then turned and walked away.

*

"Orlando?"

"Is this Liv?" His voice sounded fuzzy with sleep. "What's going on?"

"I need a ride." There was silence at the other end of the line. Liv could imagine Orlando trying to parse the fact that Liv needed a ride at four in the morning.

"Early call for you today? Mind getting a taxi?"

"Orlando, actually -- I really need to talk to someone."

Something in Liv's voice sounded raw.

"I'll be right over."

*

The steam from the coffee cups rose and evaporated into the crisp air of morning. The sound of waves on the cliffs below was both peaceful and restless, Liv felt the ebb and flow in her bones.

"I need to find a way to find him attractive," Liv said, staring at the wind and the waves.

Orlando, sitting with his hood pulled up over his ears, slugged back the last of his coffee. "You just need to spend more time with the man," he said. "I know he smells bad. Maybe I can convince him to wash first."

"It's more than that," Liv admitted. "I say it's his smell, but it's something else -- he reminds me a little too much of my father's band mates."

"You feel all ... Oedipal, then?"

"He looks old enough to be my dad, after all."

Orlando laughed, but the sound was uneasy. "I wonder what it means that I find him deadly attractive."

Liv glanced over at him, expecting a smirk or some indication that his words were a joke. But Orlando's eyes were serious, deep brown taking in the distances and depths of the ocean.

"I saw him at the hotel right after he walked in. He looked like a man from an old western -- striding in as though he had some dark past haunting him. I wanted to know more about him. And the more I learn, the more I realize he's a bloody mystery."

Liv sat back and thought. Visions of Viggo filled her head -- Viggo so earnest that he was almost laughable, insisting upon Elvish as often as he could. Viggo visibly harnessing his impatience with her before they were to kiss. Viggo looking at her so soulfully during their love scenes that she wished she could convince herself to give in, give him more.

"Maybe I can't see the mystery," Liv said finally. "I need to find out a way."

Orlando's smile twisted wryly. "Maybe the two of us should make him take us out somewhere into Viggo land. I'd love it, and you'd at least have me for company."

"Well, I guess I must," Liv said. "As long as Viggo land includes a place to shower."

Orlando laughed.

*

The sound of the waves invaded Liv's consciousness, dragged every thought out of her head and lulled her into a space beyond. Her mind floated free for a time, unconstrained by the flickering thoughts of her world -- travel, clothing, red carpets, events, Royston (so far away!), her mother, her fathers. Nothing now but peace, nothing but the shore of a vast ocean, one that would be there when she and her concerns were long gone.

After some wheedling, Orlando had convinced Viggo to take them camping. There was no shower, but out of consideration for Liv, Viggo had decided upon an easily accessible park by the ocean.

"I'll try surfing with you," Viggo said to Orlando.

Orlando's smile had fire at the back of it.

They were out on the waves, Viggo tentative, Orlando masterful. Liv's eyes followed Orlando's arc around the corners of the waves, watched as he found the strong place within the curve where the wave could carry him. Viggo stayed closer to shore and tested the feeling of board against water, his wetsuit fitting around his form as anachronistically as a cowboy in a space suit.

Liv watched them both explore the ways of the water, and realized after several hours that Viggo had gained at least as much proficiency as Orlando.

*

"You're a natural," Orlando said approvingly, once they were back at the campfire. Orlando was naked and towelling off in front of the blaze.

"How do I get out of this?" Viggo asked, trying vainly to unpeel from the wetsuit.

"Would the human like my help, then?" Orlando asked in a bantering tone, stepping up behind him. After a few moments of tugging and undoing, Orlando had Viggo undressed.

Liv noticed that Orlando's entire body had turned rosy -- red as though he'd been dipped in the sunset.

Viggo turned to thank Orlando, and suddenly the two men seemed speechless. Viggo's stare turned bewildered, and Orlando's was pleading.

Liv clattered a pan.

"Well. Unless you two want to burn your bits and pieces, would you like some shorts with your dinner?"

She'd dug knowledge out of the depths of her memory from months on the road with Bebe Buell, when they were following some band or other across country. Her mother had taught her the basics of cooking from a fire and a sterno stove.

Liv had fried a fish and vegetables and made rice.

"I'll ... get some clothes on."

"Not on my account," Orlando muttered, and stared at the high muscles in Viggo's arse as he bent to enter his tent.

Orlando turned and glared at Liv. Liv smiled a bit sheepishly.

*

That night, the shy man talked. Liv wondered in retrospect whether it was because Viggo was in his natural environment and unconstrained by the rules of civilization, or whether it was out of nervousness at the depths of Orlando's silence.

Viggo's tales spanned his entire life -- actors, artists, musicians, many continents, and most of all his son. Viggo's tales of Henry made Liv long for her father even more.

"This isn't helping," she muttered, after they'd banked the fire and gone back out to the strand to watch the stars rise over the waves.

"What's that, Liv?"

"You. You're a wonderful father. You don't remind me of my own, not one bit -- but you remind me of the father I wanted."

Viggo sighed. "I wondered whether that was the case."

"I can't look at you and see a lover. I look at you and see someone that should comfort me when I cry."

Viggo nodded. "But then again, you are an actor."

"I need something to start with."

"I hope you find it."

*

Several hours before dawn, Liv stumbled back to their campsite and poked the fire back into being. She huddled in her blanket on the ground, heard the waves in the distance reminding her of how foreign her surroundings were, how far she was from Royston.

Royston would have known the answer, would have given her that necessary spark that could've allowed passion to flame into being.

But just as she was drifting into sleep, Liv heard noises.

They were deep, wordless. They sounded like the waves and the wind in the trees. Woven into all of the sounds, Liv thought she heard Orlando's voice calling Viggo's name, urgent as water crashing on the sand.

*

In the morning, Liv noticed tenderness.

They were all silent, dazed by the short night's sleep, tired from wind and sun.

But Viggo carried Orlando's bags, and Orlando found reasons to touch Viggo more than necessary.

In their shared glances, Liv felt something turn inside of her.

*

In Rivendel, Arwen stood upon the bridge and gazed at her lover.

"It is mine to give, like my heart," Liv looked into eyes that Orlando had stared into, looked down at lips that Orlando had touched. She closed her eyes and felt Orlando's spirit inside of her.

The feeling of Viggo's lips upon her own felt like something she'd desired for a long, long time.


End file.
